Chapter 23 #2
“Stop it!” I shout, fingers clenched on the wheel. “Stop being a dick just because you’re so lost playing investigative journalist, you’re angry I can’t see things from your batshit perspective.”
“I’m not!”
“You are, and what’s worse, you haven’t thought about any of the fallout that’s coming.”
“What fallout? You mean, you not winning everyone’s hearts and minds at the reunion?”
“Yes,” I snarl. “But also, someone slashed my tyres because of you. That’s real, and new tyres are fucking expensive.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
Of course she will. Money is her apology love language.
“No,” I bite out. “You can’t just throw cash at every mess you make.” Like your parents, I think, but I don’t say it.
“Fine, pay for your own tyre. But I wasn’t done listing assholes you make excuses for.
Because second on that list is your brother, who’s somehow an even cuntier cunt than Will Sharpe.
And then there’s all of those dicks you were friends with at school, who you’re more excited about impressing tonight than listening to me tell you—”
“That’s not fair! You’ve always been my number one priority—”
“Fuck off, I have. You stood on the sidelines watching people be dicks to me. I was dying every day, and you watched it happen, and then you’d swan into the newsagents on Saturdays and be my best fucking friend because that was easier than admitting all your mates were shit.”
Shock wraps around me in a thick blanket, numbing my limbs. “Wait. Is that what you think happened?”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “That is what happened, Cecelia.”
“Bullshit, Adalasia.” My head is on fire with thoughts. The bar. Davis. Mice. Tristan. My parents. The car. And this. This is what I’m having to deal with. My best friend’s revisionist history accusations. “I did my fucking best—”
“Your best was fuck-all. Luckily, I didn’t expect anything from you, just like I don’t expect anything from anyone, because why the fuck would anyone ever stand up for me?”
“Because you never let anyone! Did you ever think maybe you’re mean and scary and super sensitive about everything and hard to be around?”
“I dunno, do you ever think about how you were so caught up in acting like a victim because you had a hot brother that you wouldn’t stick your neck out and help me?”
My eyes widen. “Help you? How do you think I could have helped you after you told Jeremy you’d stab him for putting his arm around you? You couldn’t even help yourself!”
“That was an empty threat! It’s not my fault everyone in New Zealand thinks Italians carry knives. And he brushed my tit! Which I told you about, and what did you do? Besides say I shouldn’t have told him off?”
“I told you you shouldn’t have threatened him, not told him off.
But that’s all you did; insult people and threaten them, and bash the shit out of Jenny Sharpe—who deserved it—but I wasn’t some social angel who could make people see the wonderful person you are on the inside.
Especially when you kept acting like a psycho on the outside! ”
“But—”
“And you never asked me for help. You never once asked me to come hang out at lunch. You just hid away with Rhys and terrified people.”
“I shouldn’t have had to ask! I wanted you to know that’s what I needed.”
“Ada, that’s so unfair! I’m not a fucking mindreader! Why would—”
“Because I would have done it for you! I would have looked after you! Like I’m looking after you now! Protecting you and your stupid family.”
My stomach turns. “What are you talking about?”
“Your sleazeball brother. Your Mum and Dad think the sun shines out of his hole, and he doesn’t deserve one bit of the hero worship you send his way whenever he deigns to give you some attention.”
Time seems to stop around me. A piece of a strange puzzle that’s been confusing me for years finally slides into place. “What did you do, Ada?”
She turns away from me, and that’s all the answer I need. “Oh fuck you. Tristan has been with Caroline for twelve years. What happened?”
“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “We met up when I was in London. He told me he was single.”
“And you didn’t check?”
“How was I supposed to check? Did you want me to call you? Just ring you up and be like, ‘Hey, I know you’ve got issues with your brother, but he’s hanging around whining about how lonely he is.
Does he have a secret fucking fiancée I’m going to find out about after I go back to his hotel room, because he’s too stupid not to take a call from her after he failed to fuck me? ’”
“Tristan wouldn’t do that!” I don’t believe my own words, but I want to. I don’t want to think about him doing that to Caroline. To Maisie. I need none of this to be true.
“And there it is.” Ada throws up her hands. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d take his side like you always do. You know exactly what he is, but blood’s still thicker than water, huh?”
I can barely hear her over the pounding in my head. “But when he was with Caroline? Jesus, Addy. They have a child.”
“Not back then! But it doesn’t even matter, because your brother fucking lied to me. He sucked me in.”
I laugh, an echo of the manic laugh Ada scared me with on the phone.
“Screw you,” she says in a low voice. “You call yourself my best friend, and you think I’m capable of something like that? I’m not that girl, and I never will be.”
“Ada—”
“Besides, even if I was that kind of girl, who the fuck are you to judge? You’ve been frothing over Will Sharpe for years, even back when he was married to rat-bitch. And now he’s divorced, I can see you planning your tropical honeymoon and two-point-five kids in your head.”
“That’s not fair—”
“It’s more than fucking fair. You’ve fucked dildos that are better husband material than that cunt, and you fucking know it!”
What I know is I’ve had enough. Ada fucked my brother, then has the balls to claim she didn’t tell me to protect me?
Even if she thought he was single, what was her plan?
To have sex with him, and then what? To date him?
To marry him? Where would that leave us?
I’d once again be second string to fucking Tristan, and this time worse, because it would have been my own best friend—the person who knows more than anyone how much it would hurt me to be put in that position.
But she was more than happy to do it! And then she compares her behaviour with me still having a crush on Will.
I would rather she’d had sex with Will than Tristan.
Does she ever think about anyone but herself?
I want to shake her. I need to stop driving. I need to get out of this and away from Ada. The silence engulfing the car only makes the pounding in my head blare louder. If I’m going to have my second panic attack of the day, I want it to be in my hotel room without witnesses.
Hold on. Hold on just a little longer.
The next five minutes are the longest of my life, my throat tightening with every breath. I slam the car to a stop in the first available car park in front of the hotel, and yank out the keys.
“You know what, Cece?” There’s a tremble in Ada’s voice, but it’s almost lost under the diamond bite of her words. “You’re the same as all these guys who only wanted to fuck me as soon as the coast was clear.”
All the air rushes from my body as if I’ve been physically punched. “Ada…”
“No. I mean it. I’m still fine as a secret best friend, but you’re always going to be too scared to go to bat for me when it counts, especially in front of the bullshit mates you care more about than me. You’re a pussy. You’re a pussy the same way Jake’s a pussy, and you can both fuck off!”
“No, Ada, you fuck off.” My last thread of sense snaps, and I bang my palm against the steering wheel.
“I’m so tired of you making out like there’s something wrong with me for wanting to be nice to people.
I’m not like you. You don’t care if you hurt people’s feelings as long as you get what you want. Well, I do. I care.”
“No, I—”
“All I wanted from this weekend was to forget about the bar, about money, about anything, and have fun and get laid. And instead, all that’s gone to shit because I’ve had to come and rescue you, because you spent your morning sneaking around the countryside stirring up shit on people you don’t like because they were mean to you in high school.
We’re adults! Why can’t you just leave this shit in the past and act normal for once? ”
I’ve gone too far. I know it the instant the words pass my lips.
But I can’t take it back. I am too angry.
My words hang between us, the cruellest thing I can say to her.
In my mind’s eye, I picture a miniature version of myself leaping into the air and wrangling them back, stuffing them down inside me where they belong.
But my actual eyes are filled with the image of Ada slamming the car door and walking away, her khaki shoulders pulled back, her cloud of dark hair swaying like a battle flag.
Shit.
I’m hollow inside. I should go after her, try to fix it. But I can’t move. I sit in my car, waiting, hoping she reappears. Hoping we can calm down and apologise to one another before the cocktail party. But she doesn’t. After a while, I head upstairs to the hotel room and start getting ready.
This isn’t how I pictured tonight. I wanted drinks and music, Ada and I dancing around the bathroom as we put on each other’s eyeliner. Instead, I sip on a ridiculously priced, mini bar prosecco in silence.
Thankfully, my hair has survived the implosion of my longest friendship.
Ada was supposed to do my makeup—she’s the Michelangelo of cosmetics—but without her, I do my best. It’s nothing much, base, eyes and a red lip.
Hopefully, it’s enough that nobody notices I’ve never learnt how to contour.
I struggle to get my dress done up by myself, my grunts echoing in the empty room as I test my flexibility with the back zip.